After weeks of discussion and disagreement on detail, Bulgaria has agreed to pay Russian state nuclear company Rosatom €400m ($446m), most of the compensation owed for the cancelled Belene NPP, by the end of the year, Economy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova said on 18 September. The Geneva-based International Court of Arbitration (ICC) ruled in June that Sofia must pay €620m for equipment produced by Rosatom for the project, which Bulgaria abandoned in 2012 due to financial constraints and US and EU concerns over its energy dependence on Russia. Petkova said that the rest of the compensation will be paid in two tranches. Bulgaria agreed to pay the compensation in full and quickly to avoid paying interest of $167,000 a day. Bulgaria is still considering selling the 2,000MWe nuclear project to private investors, keeping a small state stake, after an attempt to sell the equipment to Iran failed.
